ok, so i have all this free juice from work - if someone comes out with a new pomegranate juice, they send it to us. the grocery dude looks at it, then it works its way to the free shelf. if i want it, or if no one else wants it so i figure it shouldn't go to waste, i take it. therefore, i have like five things of juice in the cupboard (three pomegranates, a pomegranate-blueberry, a cranberry).

since i don't typically drink straight juice, and none of those juices really lend themselves all that well to the standard chris drink (glass of water, splash of fruit juice), i was wondering how i'd use these juices up. my answer? MINERAL WATER.

i tried it tonight for the first time - mineral water with pomegranate juice. omg, yum. delicious. and mostly water! we all know how i love to be hydrated, but sometimes just don't want to drink the water!

of course, the calories add up - i think i had half a small thing of pomegranate juice tonight (150 cals) in my few glasses of water, so you have to watch quantity - or let your taste buds get accustomed to less juice taste, which did happen for me with the chris drinks - but, then again, the cranberry juice has half the cals. 75 cals for 3-4 glasses of yummy, hydrating drinks seems fair to me. :)

so anyway, try that. TRY IT. mineral water + concentrated juice. i have some blueberry juice to try it with, too. should be interesting! and think of all the antioxidants i'm getting!

oh, and a note about antioxidants i learned the other day - even a small amount of antioxidants does measureable good. throwing fresh herbs on your salad, for example - this makes me want to make use of my lemon balm & mint in the front yard - but they only stay active in your system for about two hours. so keep the green tea - and the brightly-colored food - and the yerba mate - and the herb-infused water - coming!

A small boy lived by the ocean. He loved the creatures of the sea, especially the starfish, and he spent much of his time exploring the seashore.

One day the boy learned there would be a minus tide that would leave the starfish stranded on the sand.

When the tide went out, he went down to the beach, began picking up the stranded starfish, and tossing them back into the ocean.

An elderly man who lived next door came down to the beach to see what the boy was doing. Seeing the man's quizzical expression, the boy paused as he approached. "I'm saving the starfish!" the boy proudly declared.

When the neighbor saw all of the stranded starfish he shook his head and said: "I'm sorry to disappoint you, young man, but if you look down the beach, there are stranded starfish as far as the eye can see. And if you look up the beach the other way, it's the same. One little boy like you isn't going to make much of a difference."

The boy thought about this for a moment. Then he reached his small hand down to the sand, picked up another starfish, tossed it out into the ocean, and said: "Well, I sure made a difference for that one!"